BY Tony Edike
ENUGU—National leadership of Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, has directed striking workers of Enugu State to resume work today in compliance with Tuesday’s ruling of the National Industrial Court, Abuja, that the indefinite strike over non-implementation of the new minimum wage by the state government be called off.

The directive came against the backdrop of the workers’ refusal to abide by the agreement reached last Friday by concerned elders and traditional rulers in the state with the Nze Chumaife-led state chapter of NLC to suspend the strike in order to pave way for resolution of the wage dispute within 21 days.

The concerned elders and traditional rulers under the aegis of Anglican and Catholic Bishops of Enugu, who waded into the face-off between the state government and workers, after a two-day dialogue with the labour leaders, agreed that work should resume yesterday while all matters relating to the labour dispute including the court case and non-victimisation of workers would be looked into within a period of three weeks.

Enugu State Workers Forum, led by Comrade Osmond Ugwu, however, rejected the agreement insisting that since the matter was already before the court only the national leadership of NLC had the powers to suspend or call off the strike.